Minireview: iRatchet, billing/invoicing software for OS X

Almost everyone has done some sort of freelance or contract work that required …

If you do any freelancing or contract work, you probably understand the importance of staying organized and keeping track of every task you perform. When it comes to client work, keeping a detailed work log can mean the difference between getting paid what you deserve for the time you spent and getting paid for only what you remembered of the time you spent. Therefore, a good piece of time tracking/billing software is an indispensable tool. In the following article, we take a look at iRatchet 1.66 from Pretty Good Software.

The UI

Remember long ago when you were first told to not to judge a book by its cover? Well it seems that the same rule should apply for applications and icons. While the iRatchet icon leaves you pining for something different, the application more than makes up for its inadequacies, and then some. You will be also happy to know that when you open up this application, it dons the "Unified" look and not the Aqua look of years past, or the horrid brushed metal interface that so often turns me off.

As long as we're discussing the UI, part of what makes this application so great is that all of your information is available in one main window. There are few palettes or other floating windows to lose; any excess information that you don't always need are either in drawers or can be toggled on and off with a simple single click. The one window that is floating is the Task Monitor, but this is appropriate and we will discuss it later in the functionality section. Unlike many applications, the menu bar is actually useful and the icons residing in it by default are plentiful. This is one app where you won't want to "collapse" the menu bar, as many of the functionalities it offers have keystrokes that are somewhat complicated and are often used by other applications for something entirely different thing (command + B gets you a new fixed item). If you are like me, you won't want to take the time memorize them.

Functionality

Creating a new client is easily done from the "Manage" menu, and after all information is entered, it logically shows up in the client area—whenever you want to add a project to this client, just make sure it is highlighted. Projects work similarly, but you click the + button just below to add a new project to a client and then a project information drawer drops down. When you want to add an individual task or job to a project, you first select whether it is fixed or hourly by clicking on the appropriate window and then pressing the + button under the job panes.

Different types of jobs and tasks can be saved to save you some typing; they can be selected via a drop-down menu and edited in "Charges" found in the "Manage" menu. When setting up a "charge," you can chose between hourly and fixed and add markups or any applicable taxes. If you are billing on the road, you can easily keep track of your time and enter it at a later date with the correct time and date. You can also open and close tasks and give them status like "billed" and "paid," allowing you to keep track of a job from beginning to end and even select how the payment was made.

Time Tracking

Time tracking can be done one of two ways: through a system-wide "menuling" or through the application's "Task Monitor." The current task can be started and stopped from the menuling, but if you want to change tasks you will need to use the task Monitor. Although the Task Monitor window is a bit large for my tastes and the start, stop, and pause activators are too inconspicuous, the window does the job and keeps track of duration, balance, and date. While doing work, it is possible to minimize the main window and keep the Task Monitor window out for easy access, making me glad that this is the exception to the in one window rule—obviously thought was put into this.

Invoicing

The invoicing functionality of this software is part of what I love about it. Invoices are easily created from templates that you can edit and add predefined variables by simply selecting check boxes.

The invoices are clean and professional-looking, and the application integrates them with Mail.app for easy sending. The application also keeps track of all of your invoices in an "Invoice Book" which you can also print and e-mail from.

Miscellaneous

Data can be exported to a .zip file or in XML format, and backup of the database is possible. You can save directly to .Mac. It would be nice to be able to burn backups directly from the application to an online source other than .Mac, but that can done easily enough on your own.

It is also worth mentioning that the application also has Address Book and iCal integration for those of you who can put up with iCal. The application, according to the website, is written in Objective-C/Cocoa and runs quite well on my 800MHz G4 iBook with 640MB of RAM. Also of note is that this application is Tiger-only.

Conclusions

When first using this application, I was afraid to look at the price. I liked that it was full-featured and I just knew it had to cost hundreds of dollars. When I finally found out, I was shocked. At $44.99, this application seems an absolute steal. It seems robust enough that it could cost hundreds more, but it doesn't make this software affordable for just about any freelancer. If you are using something else for invoicing, at least give iRatchet a try, and if you are looking for something new, look no further. I can't authoritatively say that there is nothing as good as this piece of software out there for this price, but I would be very surprised if there was. As far as I'm concerned, this is top notch software.